Matthew Shipp: 4D
Posted in Avant-Garde Jazz on Mar 29th, 2011
Check Our Catalog “On 4D, Shipp nods to history with keen depth perception and articulates his new directions gracefully.” –All Music Guide
Category Archive for 'Jazz'
Bryan and the Haggards: Pretend It’s the End of the World
Posted in Country, Jazz, Uncategorized on Mar 23rd, 2011
Check Our Catalog “Country and jazz have rarely been congenial bedfellows…Bryan and the Haggards, a hardcore honky-tonk freebop collective, aims to mend any flattened fences while simultaneously removing any need for them in the first place.” –All About Jazz
Check Our Catalog “Rod is cool and loose, comfortable with the contours of these standards, which he should be after singing them for ten years. He sounds like he’s having fun swinging through the tunes everybody knows by heart, and that’s the difference on an album that’s otherwise interchangeable with what came before: usually, the [...]
Cassandra Wilson: Silver Pony
Posted in Jazz on Jan 5th, 2011
Check Our Catalog “Yeah, Cassandra Wilson is a jazz singer, but she’s a 21st century jazz singer, mixing elements of jazz, pop, rock, Delta blues, and light funk into her performances, expanding what a jazz vocalist can be in a contemporary world with her horn player phrasing, smoky texture, and a voice that has matured [...]
Keith Jarrett/Charlie Haden: Jasmine
Posted in Jazz on Jan 5th, 2011
Check Our Catalog “Picking out highlights on this eight-song, hour-long set is difficult because the dry warmth of these performances is multiplied by deeply intuitive listening and the near symbiotic, telepathic nature of the playing. The entire proceeding flows seamlessly…Jasmine is, ultimately, jazz distilled to its most essential; it not only expresses emotion and beauty, [...]
Check Our Catalog “There are plenty of familiar sounds and grooves peppered throughout Heart & Soul — his soprano sax always stays in its sweet spot, the synthesized funk rhythms keep things tight, while the glaze of electric pianos keeps things smooth, the melodies of the songs threaten to turn into covers but never go [...]
Check Our Catalog “With Norah Jones choosing to pursue a career as a Bohemian singer/songwriter, the door was wide open for a singer like Nikki Yanofsky: a bright, cheerful jazz-pop traditionalist happy to sing those old songs once again. And so she does on here 2010 debut, Nikki, produced in tandem by the legendary Phil [...]
Regina Carter: Reverse Thread
Posted in Classical, Jazz, Neo-Bop, World Music on Nov 18th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Regina Carter has been a lot of places since we last heard from her on I’ll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey, a standards album. That album was released in June; in September she won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (aka “the genius grant”). Nearly four years later, she returns with the startling [...]
Troy Andrews: Backatown
Posted in Jazz, New Orleans Blues, R&B, Soul on Oct 28th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Shorty calls his music “supafunkrock,” and it’s an accurate term for the aural gumbo on this fingerpopping, butt-shakin’ mix set. It crackles and burns with an unburdened, unfettered, passionate live feel. Backatown is everything popular American music should be; yet it’s also what sets Andrews and Orleans Avenue, and New Orleans music [...]
Kurt Rosenwinkel Standard Trio: Reflections
Posted in Jazz on Oct 28th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Reflections is an album unlike any other in Kurt Rosenwinkel’s catalog. Nearly all ballads, it dispenses with effects and other fireworks and allows Rosenwinkel to display pure jazz guitaristry, his tone and performance unencumbered by outside influences and modern distractions.”–All Music Guide
Olivier Manchon: Orchestre de Chambre Miniature Volume 1
Posted in Jazz on Oct 27th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Fond of waltz tempos, Frenchman Olivier Manchon (also known for work with the pop group Clare & the Reasons) exploits the tried-and-true chamber string-ensemble format highlighted by his jazz violin to create a beautiful sound that brings the past into the present.”–All Music Guide
Claudia Quintet: Royal Toast
Posted in Avant-Garde Jazz, Jazz on Oct 27th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Claudia’s timbres, eerie and winsome in equal measure, prove its greatest strong point. The combination of clarinet, accordion and vibraphone fashions an electric whistle and whir that squares the circle between 90s indie science frictioners Stereolab and 60s proto-proggers Soft Machine, making it clear that Claudia is a jazz group questioning the [...]
Check Our Catalog “A solid collection of Nina Simone’s recordings for RCA, covering the years 1966-1974.This is representative of a period in which Simone was riding the charts, and making an impact on audiences all over the world not only for her jazz and blues material — which included many originals as well as covers [...]
Ella Fitzgerald: The Best of Twelve Nights in Hollywood
Posted in Jazz on Jun 1st, 2010
Check Our Catalog “…One of the best (and certainly most underrated) live records in her discography. All of Fitzgerald’s hallmarks (technical wizardry, breakneck scatting, irrepressible humor and warmth) are on full display, with a small but expressive quartet backing her performance, including pianist Lou Levy, guitarist Herb Ellis, drummer Gus Johnson, and bassist Wilfred Middlebrooks.” [...]
Check Our Catalog “From the sound of her music, Smith spent her years growing up in Canada listening to some combination of old Joni Mitchell albums and old 78s from the ’20s; occasionally, she may have tried applying a hip-hopper’s scratch technique to those records.” –All Music
Christian Scott: Yesterday You Said Tomorrow
Posted in Jazz on May 28th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Yesterday You Said Tomorrow is more than a collection of tunes; it’s a statement. It’s impossible…not to notice the tonal similarities to Miles’ work of the late ’60s in Scott’s trumpet playing, and the pacing and feisty overall attitude of several tracks is reminiscent of the more contemplative music of that time.” [...]
Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall and the Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program
Posted in Jazz on May 27th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “An homage to one of the longest-running musical institutions in the country and the important place it holds in keeping New Orleans jazz alive…as well as one heck of a great listen. Standout numbers come from artists like Chicago indie stalwart Andrew Bird, who delivers a loose and rambling version of “Shake [...]
Joel Frahm & Bruce Katz: Project A
Posted in Jazz on May 15th, 2010
Check Our Catalog “Tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm and keyboardist Bruce Katz pay instrumental tribute to the rhythm & blues tunes of pop icon Aretha Franklin in a manner that is removed from stock arrangements or rote interpretations. What is at hand makes this group stand alone as a unit dedicated to this music of their [...]
Wadada Leo Smith: Spiritual Dimensions
Posted in Avant-Garde Jazz, Jazz on May 10th, 2010
Check Our Catalog Recorded live at Vision XIII, June 2008, New York City. “A consistently adventurous trumpeter who has stuck to playing avant-garde jazz throughout his career, Leo Smith’s dry, introverted style (which makes extensive use of space) is a strong contrast to the more jubilant flights of Lester Bowie.”–All Music Guide
Check Our Catalog “A fine, high-powered tenor saxophonist with a tone influenced by John Coltrane, a mastery of chord changes, and a strong musical imagination, Jerry Bergonzi has long had an underground following in the Boston area.”–All Music Guide